One of my many creative obsessions is commonplace books. A commonplace book is a collection of knowledge. It's a journal filled with everything from quotations, observations, and citations to formulas, facts, and figures–anything that’s worth remembering from anything one has read, heard, or seen. In a way it is a scrapbook, commemorating and keeping track of the things we have learned and the places we have been, figuratively or literally, via the media that passes through our lives: books, articles, poems, movies, songs, blogs, and so on. Commonplace books are kept by readers, writers, scholars, and students of schools and of life.

I keep a blog about commonplace books, reading, and writing with my good friend Elise Vaz over at thecommonplace.net.

I turned 40 years old in 2013. To celebrate, I counted down my 40 favorite books, outright stealing a brilliant idea from my good friend Daphne Durham. As I drafted them I realized that more than examples of beautiful writing (although there is much of that, too) the books I love tend to be catalysts for memories of the particular place, time, or best of all, the person or people I was with when I first read them. I'd love to hear about your top books, too, especially if we share any favorites.